Here is some more information on the redirects and what you should and should not do.
First, you should not use the page that installs with X-Cart. It used a header redirect that generates a 302 error code. A 302 is a temporary redirect and some search engines do not like that.
The reason that they do not like it is that it is a common thing for people to do to try to get better listings. They will register multiple domain names, create redirect pages to one single site and then register all the domain names with the search. Google "frowns" on this.
What you should have your site do is generate a 301 code for a redirect. This is a permanent redirect. The best way to do this is through the .htaccess file. You should create entries like this:
Code:
Redirect permanent /index.html http://www.yoursite.com/catalog/index.html
Redirect permanent /index.php http://www.yoursite.com/catalog/index.html
Redirect permanent /index.htm http://www.yoursite.com/catalog/index.html
This assumes that this is the path to your catalog. It also covers all three instances of standard index pages that are configured with *NIX servers.
It is important that you precede each listing with
Redirect permanent and not just
Redirect. The former generates a 301 code and the later will still generate a 302 code.